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In celebration of International Women’s Day, So-Young (Founder & CEO, Gnowbe) and other thought leaders from Grab, Happioh Inc., Lightspeed Venture Partners, JUCCCE, iamtheCODE, and more shared their thoughts around humanizing tech and women.
Here are some of the insights shared at the “Humanizing Tech & Women” Clubhouse talk:
Soulaima: Technology is the biggest friend of women. Humanizing tech and women goes hand-in-hand. We can do something great with technology.
Vimbaye: If tech is this great equalizer, yet all the data is only taken from the experiences of men, how much are women taken into consideration in tech? Our experience as women is not taken into consideration when we are the end-users of so many products, and that needs to change.
It is an ecosystem. We all play different parts, different roles to make a difference in this world.So-Young, 2021
Shibani: We need to get the stories out. Social media has become the platform to amplify different voices. We need to continue pounding the door and get the stories out.
Peggy: We need women to be the people who breath life into the tornado of change, and to keep the momentum going, for the tornado to sweep the land, to new possibilities.
Anna: A lot of people are looking for women founders, especially in tech. The way they look at it has changed. How do we actually champion each other? How can we bring more women into the room?
Soulaima: Instead of thinking of ourselves as the only woman in the company, isn’t it much more motivating to think of it this way – the first woman.
Ilaria: We are capable women who work hard, it’s beyond just a filling quota thing. It should become a – “because we are amazing capable women, we got to have inclusion for women” (thing).
Aishatu: We are here to educate, engage, embrace, and empower. And to let everyone know when you say you can’t find a black woman in artificial intelligence, we are here.
Krista: We are good in what we do and we happen to be women.
Lady Mariéme: When we talk about humanizing tech, let’s not just think about the silicon valley. But let’s also think about people on the ground, people who we are building the solutions for.
Megan: When we talk about tech, we need to think about what the minority needs, not just what the masses need.
Aishatu: If we are gonna talk about humanizing tech, we have to see ourselves in tech, and it can’t simply be as a consumer. Our goal is to make sure that we extend the pipeline, where we are also creators, data scientists, we are also participants. We don’t want the table, nor the seat, we want the building, the land. We certainly want to humanize tech by saying ‘we are here’.
So-Young: We are always evolving. Once we get our seat at the table, we increase our voice at the table.
“If you don’t sit at the table, you will be on the menu…”Soulaima, 2021
Soulaima: If you don’t sit at the table, you will be on the menu and you don’t wanna be on the menu. So get a seat at the table.
Elizabeth: My issue is – how do we all feel included and contributing at the table? Am I just checking the quota?
So-Young: We develop ourselves and do things that’s within our control. We can adjust and adapt ourselves to fit into this male-dominated space. We have the power of femininity and we can let our hair down like Mulan. We should embrace the fullness of ourselves.
Sarah: All of us may have experienced imposter syndrome at some point in our lives, myself included. That’s why I think it is important to remind women of their worth.
Ilaria: We have the opportunities to be included in the dialogue in this first-world country. With tech, things can be amplified, democratized and magnified. Like what Michelle Obama said: “they go low we go high”, so let’s go higher and higher.
